Credit: Alamy / Far Out / Bogaerts / Rob / Anefo
Sun 9 August 2026 19:30, UK
Strangely enough, one of the leading forces of the new wave had crossed paths with a titan of the 1960s counterculture.
The fact was, The Police guitarist Andy Summers was already something of a rock veteran when he first joined The Police in 1977. As punk had upended the whole music scene toward the decade’s end, a fortuitous session gig on Gong captain Mike Howlett’s Strontium 90 side-project saw London’s Virtual Earth Studios host Summers, Stewart Copeland and one Gordon ‘Sting’ Sumner jamming together for the first time.
Later, after bumping into Copeland on the Underground and going for coffee, Summers possessed enough chutzpah to tell the American drummer, “Stewart, you and that bass player [Sting], you’ve got something. But you need me in the band – and I accept.”
Such brass was well earned. Before The Police would conquer UK charts and play stadiums all over the States during their 1980s peak, Summers’ ten-odd years’ seniority over Sting and Copeland had seen the guitarist at the centre of the swinging London scene while the other two were still at school. As early as the mid-1960s, Summers played a small part in the British R&B boom in Zoot Money’s Big Roll Band before charting a course through to psychedelia with the group’s Dantalian’s Chariot successor, then later winning brief stints with Soft Machine and The Animals.
It was late 1966 when Summers met America’s most iconic guitarist in the flesh. Jimi Hendrix had only just arrived in London from New York for a couple of years, having played the Greenwich Village clubs fronting Jimmy James and the Blue Flames before a chance encounter with producer and manager Chas Chandler brought Seattle hopeful across the Atlantic.
Corraling his Experience trio with Noel Redding and Mitch Mitchell, the shared music scene and managerial umbrella brought the young Summers to witness Hendrix’s rise and rise across the ensuing years, socialising at Zoot Money’s rock hangout on Gunterstone Road and catching an early set at the Cromwellian Club.
But it was in Los Angeles, well into Hendrix’s rock whirlwind, that Summers managed to win an actual jam. In October 1968, the future Police guitarist caught wind that the Experience were scheduled to cut parts at TTG Studios, and through his friendship connection with Mitchell, saw to it to try and wangle an actual blast of guitar improv.
Further reading: From The Vault
“I walked out into the studio, I see Mitch, and there was a Les Paul there,” Summers recalled to Rick Beato in 2023. “So I picked up the Les Paul, probably outrageous that I actually dared to do that. I started jamming with Mitch, so we’re jamming along together, and it’s all going great; we’re having a good jam, then Jimi walked out, picks up the bass. He starts playing with us.”
About ten minutes passed before Hendrix approached the ever brash Summers for a go on the Les Paul. “Yeah, I think you can play,” Summers joked in response when recalling the story. Supposedly, the room jammed for another half hour before winding down in the evening. It was the last time Summer would ever see Hendrix again.
